Saturday, 20 July 2013

Review - Zombie 108 (2012 - Dir. Joe Chien)

Doccortex couldn't resist getting in on the zombie action. Let's see what he thinks of Zombie 108 - evlkeith

Taiwan’s first ever zombie film almost defies belief let alone description. It’s a shocking experience in every sense of the word and not in a particularly good way either. Maybe it’s a cultural issue or perhaps it’s our higher expectations of the genre, but although Zombie 108 sounds great on the back of the DVD box, in reality it’s a terrible piece of film making.

There are very few positives, other than the opening credits signalling a much higher quality viewing experience. It’s all downhill once the film starts. Our heroine and her daughter escape the Zombie Apocalypse only to be abducted by a disturbed, psychopathic, meat-faced torture merchant. That’s about as far as the plot goes, as cops, gangs, Americans and zombies combine in random acts of attacking each other, usually with guns, but occasionally with kung fu. At times you have little idea where the story is heading or indeed if it is heading anywhere.

It’s all very seedy, sleazy and unpleasant with women treated particularly harshly, and no matter what role or character they represent, they always wear hotpants. Even the lady cop wears them as part of her uniform! Perhaps this is the female garment of choice in Taiwan, but I seriously doubt that they’re that omnipresent.

All in all it’s rubbish, with few, if any redeeming features. There’s a weak plot, poor special effects, unconvincing make up, cheap camera work and comedy acting. It did however make me laugh a lot when I discussed it with evlkeith, so for that reason alone, it scores:

1/10Doccortex(To stick to my pledge of watching one zombie film a week, I've watched this too. I completely agree with Doccortex's findings except I would be a bit harsher on the rating. Generally, the inclusion of hotpants in a film lifts the rating a couple of points, e.g. Tombs of the Blind Dead, but any film that sullies hotpants is always going to receive an extremely low score. Terrible, terrible film. As for Meat Face, even looking at his picture makes me want to scrub myself clean with napalm - evlkeith)

If you like this you could also try:Sticking a slice of Pek to your face.

2 comments:

I can't say that I've seen many new ones that vaguely approach decent. But I've recently watched one where it's got a low budget and it's not too bad at all. It'll be my next Year of the Dead review...